Where is God? - Parables for Values Education
Parables and stories
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Tony de Mello tells the story of a goldfish who was desperately looking for the ocean. I was looking for it and I was looking for it everywhere but could not find it. He even began to doubt its existence because he had heard many wise fish said that it did not exist, that it was just an invention of the previous fish much more ignorant than they.
One day, he met a very old and venerable fish and told him:
-Without a doubt that you can help me. Tell me, where can I find the ocean? I've been looking for it everywhere, without result.
-The ocean, said the old - is this all: where you swim, you are looking for, you live. Out of the ocean, you'd be dead.
- But what madness I tell you? If this is only water - and the goldfish he walked away disappointed, thinking that the many years they had become imbecile old fish.
We seek God or even deny its existence without realize who we are, live and move. Happens to us as to the Jews in the time of Jesus: the Messiah they had with them but they failed to recognize it
I think it is also Tony de Mello's the history of the Zen master who sat opposite his disciples to give a talk about God. I had just begun to talk, when a bird started to sing. The master was silent, listening to singing. When the song concluded, he said to his disciples:
-After everything that said the bird, I have no me nothing to say - rose and left.
Everything in the world is God's revelation. Everything is their presence and us we strive to doubt it. A glint of his eyes is the echo of his voice, in every color on every sound. Everything is revelation, everything speaks, if we know how to listen.
You say that you do not find God, but just in case you are looking for where? Not look it, because they bored him much, in philosophical discourses which seek to prove its existence, acute theological dissertations, or pompous temples cults or those monotonous and routine prayers. Look to your around and you'll see him playing with your children, and if you return your eyes to the space, will see him walking in the cloud, spreading his arms in the lightning and descending gently with the rain. You can see him smiling in flowers and then to soar for waving his hands in trees. You'll see it in the song of the water, in the appeal of the beggar, on worker fatigue. We ask for miracles and we are not able to appreciate the timeless miracle of existence and the revelation of the mystery in a starry night, a bright dawn, a smile, a ray of
light, surprising flashes of an intelligent mind... The maximum German writer of all time, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, author of the monumental work El Fausto, both admired Mozart who considered his wit excellent proof of the existence of God. "God manifests - he said - in the miracles that occur in some men who astonish us and puzzles". Many appreciate the wonderful picture of each dawn, but deny or not recognize the existence of the painter.
"Brother almond, talk to me of God!"
And the almond tree was covered with flowers...
(Nikos Kazantzaki)
Let us also remember the verses of Tagore:
Have you not heard his silent steps?
He comes, comes..., always comes.
dios Padre gives us all as a free gift, so that we enjoy as brothers. Unfortunately, some forget this and appropriate goods that belong to all:
* * *
Bholabhai was on vacation in the countryside. He rented a bungalow near a natural reserve of birds. A wide variety of birds sang happily, on the other side of your window, throughout the day. Bholabhai was so excited that, whenever he left the House, he gave thanks to God by the enchanting melodies of the birds. One day, the reserve keeper came out to meet and said:
-Do not believe that these birds sing for you?
-Of course I believe it - replied you Bholabhai. I am sure that God sent them that they only sing for me.
-Because you are very wrong. Birds sing to me!
They engaged in a dispute so heated, that decided to go to trial. The judge heard the case carefully, and then, with enormous surprise of both, fined them each one.
-How could be you so daring! -explained his sentence the judge very grumpy. Everyone knows without a doubt that these birds have always Sung just for me!
(Taken from Lewis, Hedwig, "at home with God")
* * *
There will come a day in which the powerful will take air and Sun and sell it in comfortable instalments; We will have to pay to see the stars and privately owned will be, seas, mountains, rivers and waterfalls.
God, however, gave us so generously all all. As good father, wants us to live as brothers, helping each others, pooling, for the enjoyment of all, the talents that the gave us.
Remember the poem by Charles Thomson:
Can not pray the Lord's prayer
and keep saying "yo..."
Can not pray the Lord's prayer
and keep saying "my..."
Can not pray the Lord's prayer,
without praying for others.
Because, when you ask the daily bread
You must include your brother.
Because the others are included in each request.
From the beginning to the end,
never says "my..." or "I...".
Or this other poem of master Eckhart:
There is that which is called "my" bread. All the bread is ours and I has given to me, to others through me and to me through others. And not only bread,
but all other things necessary to sustain this life we have given in deposit to share with others, because of others, for others and others, through us.
Remember also, finally, the verses of the great Mexican poet Amado Nervo:
YOUR
Lord, Lord, you before, you then, you the immense depth of the vacuum and the interior depth: you in the aurora that sings and at night you think.
You in the Thistle flower and Thistles without flowers.
You both Zenith and nadir; You in all the transfigurations and all suffer; You in the Funeral Chapel and the wedding night; You first kiss and the last Kiss.
You in the blue eyes and dark eyes.
You in the quinceañera frivolity, and also the serious wisdom of mature age.
You in the darkest sima, you in the highest eden.
If the cocky science you don't see, I see you; If your lips you refuse, I will you proclaim.
For every man who doubts, my soul cries out: "I believe". And with every dead faith, my faith is skyrocketing.
Translated for educational purposes